


The Dancing Master

by Tibby



Category: To the Ends of the Earth (2005), To the Ends of the Earth Trilogy - William Golding
Genre: M/M, Unrequited Love, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-24
Updated: 2011-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-28 01:32:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/302248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tibby/pseuds/Tibby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Edmund decides it is time that Charles learnt to dance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dancing Master

**Author's Note:**

  * For [innie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/innie/gifts).



I do not remember when the idea occurred to me, or why I became as attached to it as I did. I suspect I was feeling the absence of a journal to write in. The keeping of a journal had, after all, become a daily habit of mine during that long voyage. No wonder if, suddenly deprived of that occupation, my last ledger wrapped up in canvas and stowed securely away, my mind should be eager to find new ways to fill the days. I also admit that I was not feeling quite myself. Although I was no longer suffering from the _mal-de-mer_ and had quite recovered from my several knocks to the head, I seemed not to have regained any sense of health. It might have been nothing but an awareness of the danger our little society was in. I took care to act with the stoicism and dignity the situation needed but the mental burden, the knowledge that I was aboard a sinking ship… I cannot feel that I ever quite escaped that. It had a physicality almost as tiring as the weeks of illness before it. I believe that most of the passengers, and perhaps even some of the officers, felt similarly. We greeted each other, smiling, bowing and touching our caps. Perhaps all the while we were thinking of how we would die, and we would smile all the more for it, eager not to spoil the morale that none of us had the benefit of.

This same thought may have been on my mind when accompanying my friend, the first lieutenant Charles Summers, on one of our walks along the waist. I know that I had been mulling over my little plan for a few days and without having decided that I was going to put the suggestion to him, I found myself leading into it.

“Charles, you told me, quite a time ago now, that you never learnt to dance.”

Charles looked at me in his customary quizzing way, amusement and caution combined.

“It’s true. There has never been any call for it in the Navy and there was even less when I was still in England.”

I cursed myself for forgetting my friend’s sensibility. It had never been my intention to steer the conversation in the direction of his upbringing or any of his other private affairs. I continued hurriedly.

“Ah! but when you are an admiral you must be able to dance,” I told him, “I hardly think your wife will countenance anything less at her balls.”

Charles laughed, “I see! And now, Edmund, now that you have conjured me a career and a wife, how do you propose I satisfy the both of them?”

“I have given great thought to the matter and have alighted upon a simple solution.”

“Which is?”

“I shall teach you. I cast myself as your dancing master, Charles.”

Hearing my plan, Charles gave a kind of groaning laugh which I cannot say was unexpected.

“My dear Edmund, sometimes I believe you have no idea of what I do on this ship! But no, forgive me, I know that you appreciate my work; you only believe that work is but one quarter of a gentleman’s duties. I tell you again, Edmund, I am not a gentleman.”

I could easily have protested that Charles is the finest gentleman of my acquaintance, and perhaps I should have, but I merely gave him a stern look and shook my head. He claims to be ambitious to his very soul. He scolds himself for it readily. And yet I have never met any man so stubbornly self-deprecating. Knowing that he would one day find himself fixed with a high rank, I became more determined than ever: if Charles would not act to improve himself, then I would have to be the instigator.

“I hope to see you in the passenger saloon at your next possible convenience,” I told him, and wished him good day.

I was taking a glass of port in the saloon the next day when, I admit, I was surprised to see Charles stride through the door to join me. I put my drink down and greeted him.

“Are you ready for your first lesson?” I asked, jovially.

Charles contrived a display of ignorance; he protested that he had merely come to talk and that he had thought the whole business of dance lessons a joke. However, he appeared so ill at ease that even I could tell he was lying. The one thing I couldn’t understand was why he would come only to tell me that he did not want to come! I could not work it out. All I could do was attempt to make him understand that my idea would be of the greatest benefit to him. He was, of course, as resolutely against it as he had been the day before. Only after much effort did I persuade him to accept a compromise.

“Very well, Edmund,” he said at last, “You will have your way. Teach me a few steps. But make them very few, for I do not have much time to spare.”

Having had no paper or ink on hand with which to make notes, I had, over the past night, been gathering remembered dances in my head with which to form a lesson. It was a hard task to replay the sequences mentally rather than physically, and I had even resorted to trying a few steps in the confines of my hutch as an _aide-mémoire_. My respect for the ill-used fellow who had attempted to instruct myself and my brothers in this particular accomplishment increased by ten-fold as I struggled to prepare. However, knowing that I had won over Charles gave me a renewed confidence and I was even so brash as to think I could offer Charles better tutelage than the average dancing master. As a gentleman used to polite society, I could advise him on the subtler aspects of correct behaviour as another teacher could not. I summoned my sense of command, told Charles to shut the door, and then led him forcefully back from the doorway. I stood him in the centre of the room. I complimented him on his posture, which befitted an officer, but gently altered his stance a little. We were ready to begin.

“We’ll start with the basics. Let’s try a balancé,” I said.

Charles nodded.

“First a plié.”

“A plié?”

I smiled, the image of patience, “Maybe we should try the basics that come before the basics…”

 

Charles Summers was not the perfect pupil. He was quick, both in foot and in mind, but his movements were rough and heavy. He did not care to dance and, although he stayed cheerful and gentlemanly in manner, he never failed to remind me that he was present only to indulge my whim. I told myself that I did not mind his reasons so long as I could assist him. Besides which, it was a pleasure to see my friend more frequently than before. Although the lessons were short, they gave Charles and I a chance to talk, and Charles would always share a brandy with me before leaving. He would return every day with an admirable recollection of the steps I had already taught him, if not a perfect physical display of them.

I taught him a cotillion first. When Charles knew the steps well enough, I encouraged him to make conversation as he danced. I believed it would give him a better understanding of the atmosphere at a ball. That was when his lack of a dancing partner struck me. It was not essential, of course, but I felt that a partner would help him to be more conscious of his heavy-footedness. There was a shortage of eligible candidates, however. Miss and Mrs. Brocklebank could not be considered. Mrs. Pike was engaged in tending to her children. Miss Granham was an unattached lady, even if she was engaged to Prettiman, and would not consent to it in any case. Moreover, when I broached the subject, Charles vehemently requested that I should not tell anyone of what we had been doing. That, then, left only me. I’m really far too tall to be a partner for Charles. Still, I suggested the idea to him. I could tell by his look that he didn’t approve of it.

“The idea does have a touch of the ridiculous about it,” I conceded, “However, I think it would help you. I know that I’m a poor substitute for a woman! You should only consider how much easier you will then find a real ball, with real ladies to impress.”

Charles’ look remained sceptical but he gave a curt nod and said, “If you think it for the best, Edmund.”

He returned to his place in the centre of the room and I stood directly opposite him. Until then, I had been clapping a rough rhythm for him to dance to. It hadn’t been much of an accompaniment but the scene that followed, with no music but the sound of our soles against the deck, seemed decidedly strange. We danced a full sequence in silence. I found myself quite taken by it, despite its eccentricity and the understandable awkwardness between myself and my partner. It seemed intimate for all that. And when Charles faced me directly and smiled despite himself, I found I felt completely at ease.

“Would it help to imagine that I’m the most beautiful woman of your acquaintance?” I asked.

“No,” scoffed Charles, “It would not!”

“You’re right, of course. I cannot look at you and think of Miss Chumley. It’s impossible.”

Charles smiled sympathetically but stayed quiet, focussing on his feet.

“Charles, did you… Do you have a sweetheart in England?”

I wasn’t sure if I expected Charles to answer such a direct question, but he did, saying, “Yes, I did. More than one, in fact.”

“And what became of them?” I asked, growing bolder.

Charles paused before answering and then said, carefully, “One is married. I cannot honestly say what became of the other. We parted company long ago.”

“Did you make either an offer? Were you turned down?”

“You will think less of me for saying so, but I do not make offers. I have no business making promises that I can’t keep.”

“I don’t think less of you,” I told him, “But I am sure that once you have a less taxing position and a little more wealth, you will have no choice but to make an offer to one of the beautiful women who sets their cap at you.”

“I don’t think so, Edmund.”

“Come! One day, I will be a guest at your wedding.”

“Really, Edmund…”

“And you shall be best man when Miss Chumley consents to become Mrs. Talbot.”

Charles lowered his hand from where it was placed against mine with more haste than I expected. I corrected Charles, who had moved to the wrong place entirely. We completed the sequence before he was called back to his duties.

 

The next day, Charles and I attempted the cotillion again. We had just met at the centre of the floor and had taken each others’ hands when Charles came to a sudden halt, clutching my hands tighter and taking them to his chest. I cried out in surprise.

“Edmund, I’m sorry, but I really must speak. I’ve been considering what we spoke of yesterday.”

I remembered that we had spoken of a number of things and I must have shown my perplexity because Charles continued, “Our talk of marriage, Edmund.”

“Ah, of course. Why? Has your heart been won over between then and now?”

I realised my joke had been ill-timed as Charles immediately frowned. I squeezed his hands, not wanting to say anything to disrupt his thoughts, yet wanting to show that I was sympathetic, that I would listen to anything that he could tell me and not think less of him for it. I felt he must be steeling himself to tell me something that he believed I would not understand. Charles had worried himself needlessly about such a problem before.

Finally he said, “I must tell you that I have never been the marrying kind. I do not think that there will ever be an important woman in my life, aside from my mother and my sisters. I find the society of men… much more valuable. And, I must add, no matter what you may think about it, that I find your society more precious than any.”

For a moment I was stunned and unsure of what to say, but I soon found my tongue, not to mention the ability to grin.

“My dear Charles!” I cried, “Is that all you had to say? I have known a great many bachelors of your distinction who keep to male company. If you prefer the calmer affections of fellow gentlemen over the terrible passion of romantic love, how can I fault you?”

“I don’t think you quite understand me; what I feel is more than friendship.”

He was trembling slightly. I released my hands and, somehow knowing what would be best, I put my arms around him. Embracing another man was not something I’d done before, even when it came to my own father. I tried to think of Charles as my mother, and carried myself back a decade or more. I held him lightly at first, but as I felt him still tremble against me, I held tighter, and as I brought him closer my taut muscles relaxed, the breath of both of us slowed, and all became peaceful.

Lifting my head from its place on his shoulder, I said, “I understand. Honestly, I do. Plato believed that the spiritual…”

Charles called me to silence, saying, “Do not talk of Plato. I hardly know who the man is.”

“I only meant to assure you that the love between friends, the form of love that we share, is natural; a high ideal of civilisation even.”

Charles smiled but his eyes, as well as his voice, had fallen silent. He had put what he wished to convey to me away from view. I felt a sort of grief at the thought that he could hide so much from me. Yet, for the time, I did not know how to express myself either.

We were quiet and I do not quite remember how we came to talk again. I can only suppose that the lesson continued until Charles had to return to his duties. I only know that I put my sense of loss aside as soon as the lesson had finished.

 

Of course, I wish, now, that I had kept that grief, and nurtured it - that I had been able to show Charles how deeply I longed to know his whole, entire heart.


End file.
